


Your Name Is John Egbert

by ScatteredStarlight413



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Godstuck, Kinda, Post-Sburb (Homestuck), Sadstuck, but also it's happy later?, i guess, i wrote this at 3 am and i have No Idea if it's any good.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 11:49:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30122313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScatteredStarlight413/pseuds/ScatteredStarlight413
Summary: John Egbert does not fly anymore.
Kudos: 12





	Your Name Is John Egbert

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in less than an hour. You can read it? I guess??? _surprise i have no idea what i'm doing with my life_

Your name is John Egbert. You are eight years old. 

You swing higher, higher, higher on your striped swing-set, and then-you fall off, flying through the air for a moment, then landing, bruising your knee.

Your Dad rushes over to you, panicked, and asks if you are okay. You shake your head, and he asks you where it hurts. You go inside, get bandaged up, and later you are okay.

But that night, you dream of that one moment when you flew. You dream of it lasting forever, and from that day onward, you dream of flight.

* * *

Your name is John Egbert. You are thirteen years old. 

The sword of Jack Noir pierces your heart, and you die. 

You do not remember dying.

You only remember what happened next. 

You were floating, feet off the ground, and it was magical, but you were distracted from your years-long dream coming true by pictures in clouds, by death and flames and too-much-blood.

You fight a demon you cannot defeat and he kills you again. You do not pay attention to flying after that. There are far more important things than childhood dreams (and you are not a child, you say to yourself. this is a lie.)

* * *

Your name is John Egbert. You are sixteen years old.

Terrified that the Game will take this one last thing, this final, glorious victory, you reach towards the Door at the End of the Game. But the joy of victory is tainted by the infinite sorrow of loss. By the holes in your heart where your friends used to be, even though they are back.

In the split second as you reach for the door they flash through your mind. Rose, stabbed by the trident of the Empress that her mother/sister/daughter would kill. Dave, struck through with two swords, one black at night, the other vivid white. Jade, crushed by her home, her refuge. 

Karkat, his sign turned to a mockery, turned to targets by the troll he loved, in his alien way. Terezi, killed by a romance as black as night that tainted her, hurt her, and in the end, slayed her. Kanaya, turned to ash by the Empress’ beams. 

Jane and Jake and Dirk, who you did not know but who you could have known if their deaths did not come so soon.

Roxy. Who watched her friends die. 

And here they are. Alive. Happy, laughing, victorious. You lock eyes with Roxy, and she is not laughing. She is not smiling. She is just...tired. 

Just like you.

You think she will be a very good friend, and then you open the Door, and you are no longer trapped.

* * *

Your name is John Egbert. You are sixteen years old and one month, and you are standing on your porch, staring at the world. There is no railing, because why would there be? You are safe from the air.

You put one foot out into the air, ready to fly, and-step back.

Suddenly, you realize that flight is not freeing. Not anymore. Your childhood dream is stained by childhood deaths and hate and fight.

You step back into your house, and shut the door.

You do not turn on the lights.

* * *

Your name is John Egbert. You are twenty-six years old. (though you do not look it-immortality keeps you young whether you wish it or not)

It has been ten years.

You have not flown. 

You have loved (more than once and more than once at one time). You have befriended, you have been helped, and you have not flown. 

You have learned to wield your powers as Heir of Breath with skill and acuity.

But you have not flown.

You are not sure why, anymore, but you have not. You are not sure you ever will again.

* * *

Your name is John Egbert. You are thirty-six years old. Those you love (all those people you love, even though not in the normal ways) stand by you. You look to them. They look to you.

Terezi has come back. Vriska is with her.

The thirteen of you (you cannot believe you have so many who care) are standing on the edge of a cliff, wind whipping through your hair.

You did not make this wind.

You step out one foot, those people you love standing behind you and cheering you silently. 

You do not step out the other.

You look at the other twelve, and a tear drips from your eye, ashamed.

You run home and do not run back.

* * *

Your name is John Egbert. You are thirty-eight years old.

You have come back to that cliff so many times, and never once stepped off.

Karkat and Kanaya and Terezi are all gods now, gods like you. It is nice, knowing that all of you will be together as long as you live. There is no need to worry, to fear, because you are all forever. You do not know if you are still conditionally immortal, or if you are truly gods, but no matter what, you will all love and live and laugh until the end of all time. 

And maybe even past that. 

Your friends are okay with you not flying. They are comforting, and they understand. They might be the only ones who do.

You still have not flown.

* * *

Your name is John Egbert, but you have been called many other things. You do not know how old you are. Dave or Aradia could tell you, but you are not sure you care. You are more god than mortal, now, changed by Time. But that is okay, because you have your friends.

They are all changed too. Rose glows, even when she does not try. She Sees more than she used to, and she is no longer overwhelmed. 

Dave does not travel, does not wield Time to make loops. He does not need to. He moves with a careful grace no-one else has, Time flowing faintly to his will even when he does not bend it.

Jade has eyes greener than eyes could-should-would be, and her powers have bloomed into more than any of you. She is terrifying and beautiful and kind and she has a garden.

Flowers bloom in Jane’s hair, and her touch heals easily. She tells you that everything is easy to heal now, easy to help.

Jake changes the world around him just by believing. He can do more than any of you, except for perhaps Jade. He still watches aliens. You join him.

Roxy is sometimes not here. Sometimes she is in a place none of you can reach, and when she comes back, there is darkness staining her skin and clothes and hair and she is smiling.

Dirk knows his splinters now. They are all him and he is none of them, and they are all broken, and that is okay. 

Aradia’s horns spiral, long and proud, and she moves through Time so easily, keeping a balance between Time and Space, Light and Void, Life and Doom. 

Karkat’s horns do not grow very much, but his eyes are all candy-red now, and his Blood glows under his skin. He is, after all, its Knight.

Kanaya glows just like Rose, though for different reasons. She steps through Space like it is air, healing and fixing it as she goes.

Terezi’s eyes never heal, and she does not let anyone heal them. They are not burnt-red now, but clear teal. She still cannot see, but she Sees so much.

Luck bends in Vriska’s favour even when she does not make it. The cards never fall against her, though she does not steal the Luck from others.

And you.

The Heir of Breath.

Wind coils around you, even when you try to still it, vivid blue and visible to any. Your hood and hair always flow in it, but you have not flown. 

Once, a mortal asked you why the embodiment of Breath-the only one-did not fly with it. You did not answer.

But today.

Today, you stand at that cliff.

You have had so many names. Heir of Breath, Windbringer, Breaker of Chains, and so many more than you can count. Terezi and Rose would know them all.

You still like John best. 

You put one foot out over the abyss.

Then almost-almost-pull it back.

But you do not.

With the same determination as you had in sBurb, as you had as you fought, you step out into the air.

You float.

What else would you expect?

You release Breath’s hold on you, and let yourself fall. 

You fall-fall-fall...and then swoop up through the air, the Breeze as joyous as you are.

You dance through the clouds and the wind and smile, because it is everything you had ever dreamed of.

And finally, the last chain on you breaks.

You dissolve into wind, swirling through the world, and return to yourself, so high up you cannot see the world beneath you.

Your name is John Egbert. You are ancient, older than the world. Than so many worlds.

And you are free.

Finally, finally, free.


End file.
